Pedrosa fastest in morning practice at Laguna Seca

It was a good start for Dani Pedrosa and the Repsol Honda Team in Laguna Seca. Both riders had their first outing on the challenging American track also taking the opportunity to try some new parts in this morning's session.

Pedrosa found pace very quickly and after two runs with his 'standard' bike, he swapped to the new one he first tried in the Mugello test, with new engine and new chassis, to set the fastest time (1'21.424), less than 1 tenth off the circuit record (1'21.376, Casey Stoner 2010). Casey also did his last run with the new engine mounted on his 'standard' chassis, which he feels more familiar with, and also improved his lap time to finish third with a fastest lap of 1'21.829, 4 tenths off his teammate.

The action continues in Laguna Seca with the second free practice scheduled at 14h10 local time (23h10 C.E.T).

DANI PEDROSA 1st 1'21.424

"We had a pretty good start of the weekend. The times has been fast from the beginning and we got into the pace quickly. I did my first two runs with my current bike and the last one with the new one and the feelings are quite similar to Mugello, which is positive. I'll test both bikes again this afternoon to have more data to judge with higher temperatures and hard tires and we'll see how it goes. This is a demanding track physically, it's small but technical and the bike moves a lot. I think that with the new engine the bike is more stable, smother due to the engine brake. I did my best lap with the new bike, even though we didn't work on the set up yet, so let's see if we can improve it a little more and decide on the best option for the race on Sunday".

Morning Practice Results